My presentation at UCAP’s 2019 Conference is now available on their website to watch, along with several other wonderful presentations. Check it out here!

Disclaimer: The explanatory blurb includes more than I cover. I had to cut the presentation down because I had too much I wanted to discuss and not enough time! If you want more, it’s all covered in my courses, check them out on the courses tab.

I’m also excited about two podcasts I’ve recently recorded, one on sexual addiction, and one on talking to your kids about healthy sexuality. Stay tuned, they should be out next month!

Note: This post contains religious content from The Church of Jesus Christ, to which I ascribe. Take what you like and leave the rest.

I have been derelict in posting about the newer website put out by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, entitled Addressing Pornography. I had the opportunity to assist in writing content for parts of this site. While you may not agree with every word posted, there are some wonderful resources here for those who struggle with porn use, for betrayed spouses, and for parents seeking to protect their children. I highly recommend checking it out and exploring what content connects with you.

The annual Utah Coalition Against Pornography Conference was wonderful! I loved the opportunity to interact with wonderful parents looking for more resources to help their children have a strong and healthy sexual foundation. I was also grateful that UCAP gave me

Come visit me at UCAP—the Utah Coalition Against Pornography. It’s the largest conference of its kind in the U.S. This year it is on February 22, at the Salt Palace, in SLC. This conference has topics for everyone including those struggling with pornography, to betrayed spouses, to parents looking to protect children, to teens and young adults. See their website for details and registration.

This year is exciting because I have been asked to speak on Betrayal Trauma!

As usual, I will also have a booth at the conference for my book that helps parents teach their children about healthy sexuality. And I will be promoting course information on my new online live courses for betrayal trauma and for parents teaching children.

Sometimes when life is going fairly well, you can still get hit with a trigger out of the blue. You are able to see that the situation is a trigger and not based in reality (Sariah at Back Pocket Yoga calls this trigger vs. truth). When this happens sometimes it seems logical to push the trigger away, or try to ignore it and move on with life. Often if we try this approach we find the trigger lingering. It can be more helpful to validate yourself in the situation. Consider, “is it normal for me to have been triggered by this situation based on my past life circumstances?” More often than not you will find that being triggered is a normal Betrayal Trauma response. Hold some space for that thought: this is a normal response to my circumstances. Don’t shame yourself, or push the reaction away, or ignore it, or freak out. Just accept it and hold space for it. Breathe into that validation. It is amazing how this can clear your mind and bring relief. Relief that this is normal and an acceptable reality to be in.

Once you have validated yourself, and have accepted your reality you are in a better space through which to process, assess your situation, and move forward.

There are two helpful questions to ask oneself in the development of boundaries. The first involves asking yourself what you need to find safety and serenity. The second involves asking yourself what kind of person you want to be.

For those healing from Betrayal Trauma, one of the first things that needs to be assessed is their current emotional safety. If they are not emotionally safe, nothing we do in therapy will be very healing. This is one of the reasons I believe that couples therapy is often not useful very early in the recovery/healing process. The betrayed spouse needs to develop boundaries, and the betraying spouse needs to find some emotional stability and sobriety. Both of these are necessary for them to hold space for the third entity, the relationship, which includes the pain and issues both people bring to it. Individual healing and recovery must occur to the point where couples are in a space to work on the relationship. Therefore, couples therapy is indicated either when that individual healing and recovery is underway, or when there is a need for conversations as a couple in the development of safety and healing (such as working out the setting of specific safety boundaries, or determining together what “recovery” or “sobriety” looks like as defined by the couple themselves).

The analogy I use is that of a PTSD war vet. No one would ever conceive of convincing a war veteran to heal and work through his PTSD before he has left combat (technically at that point he wouldn’t be a veteran, but you see the point). The trauma is ongoing. There needs to be a level of safety present before healing can be attempted. For the betrayal trauma spouse, that safety is boundaries.